Among the most popular Japanese prints in the West were the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ukiyo-e (literally "pictures of the floating world"), which depicted urban leisure pursuits, everyday life, and famous landscapes. Such prints presented Western artists with radically new approaches to figuration and compositional design in their flattening of three-dimensional forms, expressive stylization of the human body, and emphasis on decorative lines and patterns.
Catalogue Description:
From the series "Shichigosan kodakara awase," the Japanese title of this image is "Hakama-e-no-zu" or "His First Pantaloons."
